# Dorsey wants Block to operate with three distinct roles

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/dorsey-wants-block-to-operate-with-three-distinct-roles/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Jack Dorsey](https://realalpha.app/people/jack-dorsey/) · CEO, Block · Co-founded Twitter and Square, and leads Block, which is reorganizing around an AI intelligence layer.
- Host: [Sonya Huang](https://realalpha.app/people/sonya-huang/) · Partner, Sequoia Capital · Works with OpenAI and Anthropic; co-wrote Sequoia's essay on generative AI.
- Host: [Pat Grady](https://realalpha.app/people/pat-grady/) · Co-steward, Sequoia Capital · Joined Sequoia in 2007; backed Snowflake, Zoom, ServiceNow and OpenAI.
- Show: Training Data
- Episode: [Jack Dorsey: Every Company Can Now Be a Mini-AGI](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/), Apr 2, 2026
- Moment: 7:02 to 13:24 of the episode (6 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/dorsey-wants-block-to-operate-with-three-distinct-roles/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=422

## Quote

> “we want to normalize down to **just three roles**.”
> — [Jack Dorsey](https://realalpha.app/people/jack-dorsey/) at [8:16](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=496) · Training Data

## Takeaways

1. Builders use AI agents to expand the work one person can do.
2. DRIs own customer outcomes and assemble teams to deliver them.
3. Player-coaches build others' skills without relying on hierarchy.

## About this segment

Jack Dorsey lays out a model of builders, outcome owners and player-coaches, with coaching separated from reporting lines. He sees the CEO's job shifting toward shaping the company's intelligence and aligning it with customer outcomes.

From “Jack Dorsey: Every Company Can Now Be a Mini-AGI”, Apr 2, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[7:05](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=425) organization looked like before and granted you're very early in this but what's it look like now? Which roles have been eliminated? Uh, what are the new roles? Um, just kind of drill down a little bit into what block looks like today and kind of where it's going. Yeah, we, we, we are early in it. Um, I mean, just from a, you know, one, one measurement of, of Thank you. how far along we are would be the depth from me to any other individual in the company. And I would say our, our max depth right now is probably five.

[7:39](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=459) Okay. Uh, folks between me and anyone in the company. Um, I would want to get that down to two to three, uh, this year. And in the most ideal case, you know, there, there is no layer everyone in the company reports to me and that would be, you know, all, all 6,000 of other company. And that feels somewhat, you know, ridiculous when you consider like the old structure, but when you consider that, um, the majority of our work is going through this intelligence layer, um, it's a lot more manageable and it, that goes into the roles, uh, going forward. We, we want to normalize down to just three roles. The first is an IC, which is a builder or an operator this is a salesperson it's an engineer it's a designer a product person like you know whatever it is they're actually working with the tools to build or to operate the company they're augmented because they have access to

[8:42](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=522) agents so you know one person can you know potentially do the work or explore the breadth that you know it would take a team or you know 10 people to do in the past so that's number one and And I think there's a durable human skill that lasts there, which is judgment and taste and creativity. So that's probably the largest part of the population is the builder and the operators, the ICs. The second role is the DRI.

[9:07](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=547) And that's someone who can own the customer outcomes. They're putting a strategy together. They're understanding what roadmap allows us to solve customer needs and problems. and they're assembling a team of these ICs to get something done. But the durable human skill there is ownership and accountability. They're really owning the outcomes and whether something is failing or not. And then the last role would be what we consider managers today, which we're calling a player coach.

[9:44](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=584) This is someone who is building the capability and the capacity of other humans and their craft but instead of telling them how to do it they're showing them how to do it by doing the work so these are these are people who might be ICs Or they might be DRIs, but they're also really good at giving coaching skills, at a coaching skill to help the people around them get better and better and master their craft.

[10:12](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=612) And today, that's a management structure where ICs and even DRIs report to a player coach. But I think in the future, it's an assignment. It's not a reporting structure, but I'm assigned to ICs or I'm assigned to DRIs to help them master their craft. And obviously the durable human skill there is building human capacity and coaching. And there's a lot of empathy there and all the soft skills that we recognize, great managers are known for.

[10:46](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=646) But not making a requirement that they have to be strategic necessarily. They have to build because they need to show off the skill and teach in that way, but they don't necessarily need to be a DRI. In very rare cases, one person can take on all three of those roles. I think I can take on all three of those roles. My leadership team is expected to take on all three of those roles. They're expected to build as an IC or operate the company.

[11:15](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=675) They're expected to be strategic and actually think about roadmaps and customer outcomes. and they're expected to coach and help raise the skill level around them with the people that they work with, with their direct team. Just a little kind of before and after, and you're mid on this, and let's pretend like it's working great and it's two years now and it's extremely flat. What is the role of the CEO before and after?

[11:41](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=701) Most of the listeners, by the way, are CEOs. What does planning look like before and after? What happens to all those people who are directors and managers or the kind of glue people? Like what are kind of the before and afters in your mind? I think my job as CEO in the past I've thought about in three ways. Number one is to ensure that we have the right principles and the right team dynamic. And that's like hiring and firing and setting values and setting the culture and setting the tone.

[12:17](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=737) The second is to ensure that decisions are being made in context of our customers and industry trends and competition. And the third would be to raise the bar on our execution, like to constantly. Increase our capability and to push ourselves into doing things that are uncomfortable so that we're growing all the time. So that's how I thought about my job up until this point. I think in the future, you have those elements, certainly, but I think it's more about the architecture of how the company as an intelligence works.

[12:53](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=773) and like if we're building the company as an intelligence our job is as humans and my job is to constantly align it to where we think the right outcome is and i i see like you know visually i see the the company the intelligence the world model for the company in the center and then on the edge are the humans who are just constantly aligning this towards customer outcomes. But even that changes, I believe, because I think a company's ultimate